First Irrigation of 2009!

Chelsea and I irrigated our first round of crops for 2009! I planted: Chantenay and Imperator Carrots, Spinach, Purple Top Turnips, Russian Kale, Snow Peas and English Peas. As you can tell the new bedmaker works, but not super well. The beds are really tall now, about 6" but the seedbed is still as coarse as it was in 2008. I'm going to adjust my bedmaker down to about 4" so that it packs a better seedbed and so the irrigation water can wick up to the surface. Within a few days of planting we irrigated the new beds so that the seeds will germinate. We fired up the pump and poured the water down the furrows, as you can see. There was two problems. First, the beds are taller so it is harder for the irrigation water to wick up the the soil surface. Two, when I planted the soil was still a little moist so the tractor tires compacted the silty clay in the wheel tracks. Because the soil is a little compacted, the irrigation water won't infiltrate the furrows and with the higher beds it fails to wick up to the seedbed. That sucked a lot. It isn't a problem for the peas becasause they are planted deep and they are big enough to germinate well with just a little water. The carrots on the other hand are notorious for germinating poorly when the soil surface is dry. We had to figure out a way to get the top of the bed wet for the carrots to germinate.

Here was our plan. Gardeners water with a hose, so why can't we? It's only a three inch hose a weighs about a half a ton. Gardeners have a spray nozzle for wetting the soil surface, so why can't we? It's only a three inch hose. We went to Sutherlands and got a 3" to 1 1/2" adapter and necked that 3" hose down to 1 1/2" so it would spray a distance. Sure enough, you can spray some water with a 3" hose! I played fireman for a couple hours while Chelsea adjusted the throttle on the irrigation pump... lo and behold, with enough commitment and a lot of stupidity you can water a half an acre just like a garden! Too bad it was just above freezing outside and I got soaked with water. Long story short we are reconsidering drip irrigation!